TRIMET CAUGHT RED HANDED OBSTRUCTING TRANSPARENCY

Trimet bloggers find this no surprise, Mcfarlane and his minions obstructed factual information from being released to the public. Hiding behind the Oregon Public Records law, which was created to aid in keeping government secrets they were able to obstruct Joe Rose from getting to the bottom of all this for months


I remember like it was yesterday the day the yellow line went into the block at Expo. Everybody knew the MAX operator had just returned from a trip and simply fell asleep. Hey it happens. But instead of coming clean on this Trimet mounted this huge coverup.

The video came to me from a pal of mine who is another bus driver at Trimet. He got it from a long time employee at Trimet, all of this via email. Neither of those two drivers could be considered activists and both keep their heads down. When I got it I thought it was great, and figured it was already out in the public. Boy was I wrong. It created a firestorm that I had not anticipated.

One of my blogger buddies who is a rail specialist clued me in immediately, suggesting I don't put it up. Not paying attention to them I went ahead and posted it on my blog. Joe (Rose) called me that day and asked if he could use it on his blog. Of course I said yes and after he published it the sheet hit the fan.

I was put on suspension (ridiculous) and dragged into the office the next day to see the assistant station manager. With the station manager parked in the next office most likely listening to the questioning I was told, and this is an exact quote

"either I give up the source of this video or I will be held responsible just like a drug dealer who gets caught with drugs and refuses to hand over their dealer"

I refused to give up my source.

A month later I started getting 'secret rider' phony reports. When questioning the assistant station manager about those I was told 'you make yourself a target' Soon after I got out of that place.
Best thing they ever did for me. You really don't realize how awful that job is till you don't have to show up there any longer. At least for me.

And here we are full circle. They have been caught covering up and lying about things. This is not some isolated event but the way things are at Trimet. The managers routinely lie about things. And  we see the true Trimet. A lying, scheming, conniving, agency filled with management that only seeks to protect itself at all costs.

They keep getting away with all this, a weak kneed disinterested governor and a useless board of sock puppets. Trimet is the laughing stock of transit districts.

Over many months, Rose requested records pertaining to a runaway MAX train, and bus and rail operator work schedules. He met roadblocks by the transit agency, which argued the documents did not exist as he'd requested them -- that they would need to be created and thus were not public documents available for the asking. So Rose and his editors capitulated and asked for the data as TriMet kept it. And TriMet's reply was another roadblock: to convert its data into PDF files, forcing a laborious process by Rose and his associates of "cut-and-paste" searching across some 8,000 pages. Oh, and The Oregonian would ultimately pay $500 for the privilege, pushing its total TriMet tab for records to about $2,400. 

 Asleep at the wheel: Driver fatigue and TriMet myopia threaten public safety | OregonLive.com